US gets its own iTunes Festival and other news from Feb. 19, 2014

Apple's iTunes Festival has been a UK mainstay for the past few years, but now the US is getting its own. Apple has announced its first US iTunes Festival to be held during SXSW in Austin, Texas. The festival, running from March 11-15, will feature Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, Willie Nelson, ZEDD and more.

If you can't make it to SXSW, the festival will be live streamed for free, and available on demand afterwards. There will be a US iTunes Festival app, as well as a channel on the Apple TV.

"The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a news release. "We're excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US."

Other news from Wednesday afternoon includes:

What's the latest app on your home screen to be snatched up by Facebook? WhatsApp, which has been snapped up for a jaw-dropping $16 billion plus $3 billion in potential stock. Like with Instagram, Facebook says that WhatsApp will remain its own product and be semi-independent from normal Facebook operations.